MOJAVE — Inside one of the bustling ramshackle hangars at the Mojave Air & Space Port, 23-year-old Kyle Nyberg is tightening dozens of stainless-steel nuts that make up the innards of the rocket sitting before him.

As the searing desert heat creeps in through an open door, beads of sweat form on Nyberg's brow. Dirt coats his baseball cap and his black gym shoes threaded with neon green laces. Some of his fingers are wrapped with ragged bandages.

But the young aeronautical engineer is smiling. He knows the 12-foot rocket is set to blast off any day now.